By Betsy Barcus

You've come a long, long way if you've made it to BARCA's main offices in Costa Rica. You will have braved plane travel, sloshed through torrential rains, avoided possible landslides and flooding (especially if you took the coastal highway past Parrita), and survived the famous Costa Rican roads.

Welcome to Salamá, the headquarters for our Costa Rican Operations!

Stepping out of an air-conditioned car and into our famous southern Pacific humidity (if it’s not raining, of course) is the first step. At least the view of the surrounding teak plantations, which at times house red macaws and white-faced monkeys, makes up for the heat. ¡Pase adelante!

Due to our recent expansion to other parts of the country, the only two people you are sure to find in the Salamá main office are Administrator Rafael Sequeira, and Receptionist Mileny González.

Today we rose early enough to catch José Corrales, the Operations Manager for all of Costa Rica, and Evelyn Ramírez, the Forest Supervisor for Central and Southern Pacific Regions, before they head out to examine a newly planted site with a client. Early in Costa Rica means before 6 AM, which is not hard, as our world famous sunrise is at 5 AM.

 When Evelyn is not in the main office or on the road you can find her in Palmar Sur, where we operate one of our production and research nurseries.

Where are the rest of us?

Our new Regional Supervisor, Róger Bonilla, is on the road, checking out one of the new farms we began managing this year, either in Cariari de Limón or in the North Pacific.

Forester Nancy Guzmán works from her home office and travels to where she is needed, networking at events such as the ¡Vive la Madera! Fair that recently took place in San José. When newest team member Javier Pacheco isn’t in the San José office, he can be found selling Jiffies, the world’s leading seedling rooting medium, which BARCA is the Central American distributor for JIFFY International AS. Senior forester Ricardo Luján works out of his home office in Pérez Zeledón, often on Skype with Fred, Diego or one of BARCA’s clients.

Although Diego Dipieri’s main office is in Panamá, as BARCA’s Operations Director he visits the CR operations quite often. Here we caught him at the nursery with Bruno, our mouse-chaser mascot. When I’m not working from my home office in the hills, I can usually be found in either of the Salamá or San José offices, or visiting one of the field crews.

Our Financial Director, Jorge Mora, works out of our office in San José, along with our two accountants,  Rolando Durán and Iván Quirós.

The other hundred or so year-round workers are spread along the Pacific coast, from the Nicaraguan border in the North, to Panamá in the South, and to the East in Cariari in the Limon province.

Last but certainly not least is our fearless leader Fred Schutter, the Managing Director of BARCA, who is not in his home office today, but out front pruning trees to clear his office ocean view.

Hasta pronto amigos!